Sunday, September 26, 2010

Link Building is the most crucial aspect of your SEO campaign. When your website is being linked to from another website, your PR(Page Rank) increases and therefore seen as an important site by Google and all the other major search engines which leads to high rankings. So if you want to rank on the first page of Google for your keyword then you must focus on getting backlinks to your website.

Backlinks are very important because it shows the search engines that your site is relevant and popular. If a higher PR site links to your webpage, then Google will think that your site very important. For example, just one link from a PR 7 site will increase your page rank to PR4 which will have a huge impact your search rankings. This will also boost the amount of traffic to your site.

* Article Marketing – This is my favourite method of generating backlinks and is definitely the best way. Write articles that are related to your website and what you are offering and then submit them to article directories. Make sure you place a link to your site in the author box of your articles. For example, If you plublish your article on 100 directories, then you will have 100 backlinks to your web-page.

* Directory Submission – Submit your site to website directories for massive exposure. Start by submitting your site to free and paid website directories such as Dmoz and Yahoo directories, these are the largest ones so getting approved by these directories will give you a great boost.

* Make a blog and connect it with your website, write unique and compelling content for your blog and link it back to your website.

* Social Bookmarking – Social bookmarking is a great way to build backlinks and generate quick traffic to your site. Another cool thing about social bookmarking is that if your content very interesting then you will create a buzz on those social sites and people will talk about it and share it.

* Link Exchange – Another great way to build backlinks to your site is by exchanging links with other webmasters, preferably with related sites. Find high ranking sites that are worth linking to and shoot them a quick email. Remember, some of them will not accept and some will, so if they say no then move on.

There are many more ways that you can build backlinks, I would love to hear what you guys think. Comment, and tell me if I’m missing some good methods.

If you have been anywhere near the Internet marketing space for any length of time, you have most certainly heard the old adage “content is king.”Never has that been more true than today. No longer can you just slap up a couple links on low PR article and blog sites and call it a day if you plan on ranking in Google.

This new era of SEO and link building requires you to build compelling content that people will naturally link to, link building as it is meant to be.But creating compelling content that will bring in loads of links is much easier said than done. That begs the question: how can you use content strategy as a focal point of your link building efforts?

That’s one of the main points Vertical Measures President Arnie Kuenn answered in Thursday’s VM webinar entitled “How to Build Traffic & Backlinks with Content Marketing,” which you can view in its entirety on our free SEO webinars page.Companies are just now starting to understand that information is one of their most important offerings. In this Internet Age, the world is no longer just about products and services.

It’s important for companies to provide relevant content that solves tough problems faced by customers and to position themselves as a trusted solutions provider in their industry, as customers rely on companies to be a trusted source of information.In the webinar, Arnie explained that storytelling gains an advantage being that if you can tell a story in a meaningful way then people will listen, read and ultimately link. This could involve hiring journalists to tell the story of your company or your product in a way that will resonate with the reader.

The crux of a content strategy boils down to this: you must create great content. Earth shattering, right? That involves building content around your keywords that adds real value to the reader by being unique, informative and entertaining.For example, an REO/foreclosures corporate blog recently posted a piece of content on 13 homes that can’t foreclose, in which they picked out ridiculous “housing” choices such as a Monopoly house and a Gingerbread house. A piece like this incorporates the keyword (foreclosed homes) around a creative theme that can naturally attract links.

Such linkworthy content, as we like to call it here at VM, can come in a number of different forms. Arnie listed 13 popular ones:

Finally, one of the biggest keys in creating interesting content that people will link to is to make it relevant. If you write the most interesting piece of content in the world on something people don’t care about, nobody will link to it. It’s the sad truth of the matter.However, if you research what’s trending, you can tailor that hot topic/event to one of your keywords. For example, you could do a post on the 10 most expensive car crashes in history, with the last one being Tiger Woods’ crash, as one company in this space recently did. This example takes a national story and relates it to a client’s industry, although it’s an industry that usually doesn’t mesh with Tiger Woods and golf.When looking for what’s current and hot when brainstorming for content, you should:- Check Google Trends & Google Insights for Search- Check trending topics on Twitter, Yahoo and MSN- Look at answer sites like Yahoo Answers to figure out what people are asking about in your industry- Check sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Tipd and Mixx.Finally, Arnie discussed five steps in the content development process, which are as follows:1. Brainstorm Concepts2. Choose Most Powerful Idea3. Wireframe Content4. Create CSS/HTML/Code5. Prepare Seeding and Launch Plan